OpenAI Fires Back at Elon Musk’s Lawsuit

Earlier this month, Elon Musk asked a federal court to block OpenAI’s efforts to transform itself from a nonprofit into a purely for-profit company.

On Friday, OpenAI responded with its own legal filing, arguing that Mr. Musk is merely trying to hamstring OpenAI as he builds a rival company, called xAI.

What Mr. Musk is asking for would “debilitate OpenAI’s business, board deliberations, and mission to create safe and beneficial A.I. — all to the advantage of Musk and his own A.I. company,” the filing said. “The motion should be denied.”

OpenAI also disputed many of the claims made by Mr. Musk in the lawsuit he brought against OpenAI earlier this year.

In a blog post published before Friday’s filing, OpenAI portrayed Mr. Musk as a hypocrite, saying that he had tried to transform the lab from a nonprofit into a for-profit operation before he left the organization six years ago.

The filing and blog post included documents claiming to show that in 2017, Jared Birchall, the head of Mr. Musk’s family office, registered a company called Open Artificial Intelligence Technologies, Inc. that was meant to be a for-profit incarnation of OpenAI.